Wet Because of the Rain: English version
by BlueIce
Summary: Death is suffering only for those who remain...SiriusRemus


_Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Bowling. The title comes from Tori Amos's Northern Lad_

_Notes: This is my first Harry Potter fic, and I'm not a native English speaker, so in both cases be gentle and patient with me _

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**Wet because of the Rain**

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Outside it is raining for the first time in weeks. The air is heavy, damp and hot. Everything smells like rain, but it is not the refreshing rain that feeds plants and flowers. This rain is strange, warm, oppressing. I feel apprehensive, fidgety, confused. There's something in my chest that makes it hard to breathe, and my heart is beating so fast I can _hear _it. I can hear the blood rushing through my veins and my skin feels hot, sweaty, too small for my body. I can't stop touching the nape of my neck, my forehead, my right cheek and my chest. I hear the lightning tearing apart the sky and I can't see it with my eyes, but I can see it with my ears.

Hidden by the thunder roaring some footfalls come closer, cautious, fearful, in a deafening  silence booming in my head, stronger and more violent. The footfalls take on a shape, colour, size, and I can catch a glimpse of a pair of shoes, legs, and hips, and a chest, and solid shoulders, and an expressionless face, holding yet in its fixity all the expressions of the world. A face I could recognize among thousands and thousands of other faces, with a metallic and cold glare, with high and prominent cheek bones, with a strong chin, a face framed by long raven black hair, perpetually ruffled.

I see him coming closer to me. No, I'm getting closer to him, quivering, trembling, and I almost reach him, and I almost grab him, a hem of his shiny cloak, a fiber of his dark robe, a cell of his rough hand, but my hand clutches thin air, his images dissolves and dispels and reassembles behind my back and I turn and I see him there, and this time he smiles faintly, a tired, sad smile, and once again I try to get to him and once again he slips away, and once again he is there, melancholy, and he's looking at me, and I'm looking at him, and he moves his dry lips, and I can understand the words he is shaping, along with his voice, which I can't hear but I can feel. "You can't reach me, Remus" he says to me "it's not your moment, it's not fair, you have to let me go". And I don't want to, and I shout to him, Sirius I can't, I can't let you go, why you, damn you, couldn't you be more careful, and it's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair, _it's not fair_!!!!!

His image stretches out his hand towards me, and I stretch out mine towards him, and together we caress each other's cheeks, but we never manage to, Sirius disappears again, swallowed by the thunder ripping open the air and I can perceive something wet on my fingertips. Raindrops? I bring the index to my lips. Salty? Rain isn't salty. But then...

"Professor, professor!" I feel someone shaking me. There's a certain hint of urgence on this voice, nearly of terror. "Professor, answer me!"

I close my eyes, tired, and I open them up soon, painting of my face a serene expression. My usual serene expression.

"Tell me, Harry".

Harry has changed. Since that day, he has changes. He doesn't laugh aymore. He doesn't get furious anymore.

"Nothing, it's just...you looked so far away...I'm afraid that..." and then he brusquely stops. He doesn't have to go on. I know. I nod, and he, cheered up, offers me a small smile.

His lips a little curved upwards.

"He needs you now" Sirius whispers to me again "you can't follow me. Your place is here. Harry needs you"

"And I need you"

"And I need you" he echoes, with his limpid voice. "but now I have to let you go. And you have to let me go as well".

I know he's right. I know I can't bring him back to me. I know I can't let him go.

"You have to learn to be only wet because of the rain".

A lightning.

"Only wet because of the rain".

A bolt.

"Because of the rain".

And outside the storm still rages. And still I find it hard to breathe.


End file.
